1h
Director: Ralph Nelson
Stars: Julie Andrews, Howard Lindsay, Dorothy Stickney, Ilka Chase, Kaye Ballard, Alice Ghostley, Edie Adams, Jon Cypher.
Jonathan Lucas ... choreographer (uncredited)
Actually only 1h 17min without commercials.
14 songs in the Soundtracks, 14 chapters on the disc with menu and song indicators.
The best pro here is JA, and she has the most to do. She inhabits the character wonderfully, sings beautifully, and dances gracefully. If she erred, I missed it.
Fun to have on board: Edith(!) Adams, bringing her champion baton-twirling skills to her magic wand/sceptre. It looks bulkier than a baton, so I'm even more impressed. She has a very sunny persona, and she brings humor to her godmother role. But she is clearly the product of live comedy TV, where it was ok to mess up and look into the camera. She doesn't mar the show, but it's a different kind of "pro" than JA.
Additional humor is provided by Ghostley and Ballard as the stepsisters.
Jon Cypher seems to lose the beat fairly often while singing. But he has a good voice, and a good face for the role of the Prince. When dancing, he commits to the fairy tale exaggerated movements. In the extra features, he talks about vocally stepping on the Queen's singing and being very upset about it. I didn't notice that one.
The ballroom looks tiny with all those dancers, and the thin vertical columns look dangerous for a live b'cast but maybe they're more stable than they look.
I like that the stepmother & stepsisters seem not so much evil as utterly narcissistic. They order C around because they can, not because they're trying to be cruel.
I don't remember seeing this before, neither with JA, nor the later versions.
What IS Cinderella's real name? Surely that's a nickname. But apparently author Charles Perrault didn't provide another.
I adore JA as a musical performer, so I'm very happy to have this. Just ran it a second time, and am smiling again. And I'm not a fan of the fairy tale. It's all about Julie.
CBS, dir. Nelson; 8
